Charlie Brown has plenty of reasons to be disgusted with Snoopy in “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” back again at First Stage under Jeff Frank’s direction.

Notwithstanding the hype about man’s best friend, Charlie’s irrepressible beagle marches to his own beat, even if that means keeping time with urchins who’d rather dance and play than listen to Charlie as he directs the Christmas pageant. When they laugh at Charlie — Zachary Church in the Schulz cast of young performers I saw — Snoopy is apt to laugh right along.

But during the pivotal moment when Linus (John Aebly) takes the stage to describe Jesus’ birth, Matt Daniels’ Snoopy lies next to a forlorn Charlie, gently nudging him. When a newly inspired Charlie leaves to decorate his scrawny tree, Snoopy is first to follow. And when Charlie almost kills that tree, it’s Snoopy who saves the day.

Bottom line: When Charlie needs Snoopy most, his beagle is there. And for all Snoopy’s show-stealing antics, this show drives home that he and the comparatively subdued Charlie have more in common than one might think.

Both are would-be directors: Charlie rehearses the school play, and Snoopy particularly loves telling music director and pianist Jack Forbes Wilson what to do.

Notwithstanding Charlie’s claim that Snoopy has gone commercial, both seek the reason for the season: Snoopy’s impersonations include a turn as a Salvation Army bell ringer, and Snoopy willingly strips his over-decorated doghouse to trim Charlie’s tree.

Both have issues with Lucy: a delightfully bossy Ivy Broder, taller than Church’s Charlie and willing to make the most of it.

Most important: Both are outsiders fantasizing different and better worlds, as an alternative to the sometimes mean, cookie-cutter conformism of the Peanuts gang. And for both Charlie and his dog, those dreams often crash — much like Snoopy’s Sopwith Camel. It’s shot down here, in a production that gleefully raids other Charlie Brown shows for iconic Snoopy routines.

Dressed in white from cap to toe, Daniels — part dog and part commedia clown – somehow tops his terrific 2015 debut as Snoopy. But while he’s added new material to his highlight reel, Daniels’ finest moment remains a gladiatorial contest with a director’s chair Snoopy can’t quite set up. It’s a metaphor for Snoopy’s quixotic efforts to escape a dog’s life and take charge.

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When Snoopy isn’t hogging the limelight, we’re given a straight-up, nearly frill-free rendition of the beloved 1965 Christmas special.

Excepting Jason Orlenko’s spot-on period costumes, it’s not nearly as fancy or imaginative as most First Stage shows, but perhaps that’s the point. In a season that’s increasingly defined by conspicuous consumption, Charlie and his tree drive home what Snoopy and the gang must learn: it’s unadorned love rather than shiny things that makes the world go round.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” continues through Dec. 31 at the Marcus Center’s Todd Wehr Theater, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call (414) 273-7206 or visit firststage.org. Read more about this production at TapMilwaukee.com.

PROGRAM NOTES

Giving voice to children: As director Jeff Frank reminds us in his program note, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz insisted that actual children be used to voice the characters in “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” even though the suits thought this move would be a disaster. So why, in the four years since this stage adaptation of the 1965 classic was unveiled in 2013, have some theater companies cast adults in these roles? That would simply never happen at First Stage; Daniels is the only adult actor in this cast, ensuring that there’s nary a false note from the Peanuts gang. Sure, they can be rough around the edges; so are the Peanuts characters. But they ring true.

The beautiful sound of cold, hard cash: Lucy, who wants real estate for Christmas, infamously loves the sound of a clinking coin; no exception, here. But Broder’s Lucy shamefacedly catches herself even as she gets carried away by dreams of riches. Returning to the task at hand – rendering the counseling to Charlie that he’s paid for – Broder’s Lucy is clearly embarrassed that she’s momentarily forgotten herself. One might see this small moment as a microcosm of the entire show, in which each of the Peanuts characters eventually comes to the realization that what’s special about Christmas has nothing to do with money. Or things.

A nifty sleight of hand: I wish the First Stage cast could trim my pint-sized tree as expertly as it dresses the one purchased by Charlie. The cast gives this sad specimen that famous eleventh-hour makeover, without the benefit of busy animation to hide the process that turns this ugly duckling into a stately swan. It’s a marvelously staged moment, delivering a transformative Christmas miracle.

Jack Forbes Wilson: Dressed in Charlie Brown colors and onstage throughout the show, music director Jack Forbes Wilson plays Vince Guaraldi’s jazzy score, giving its generally upbeat sound just a hint of Charlie’s own underlying melancholy. Wilson also plays his way through a vaudeville medley and takes his turn on a kazoo (yes, you guessed: both of these interludes have something to do with Snoopy channeling his inner diva). And, finally, Wilson leads cast and audience in a brief singalong of Christmas carols. As always with Wilson, he manages to play with a showman’s flair without upstaging the action. He makes it all look easy. It isn’t.

First Stage’s Young Company: As I’ve written before, one shouldn’t miss shows staged by First Stage’s award-winning, staggeringly talented Young Company, an advanced troupe of high school actors who receive intense college-level training and whose shows each year are the most dazzling jewels in First Stage’s glittering crown. This December, the Young Company takes on Thornton Wilder’s thorny and timely “The Skin of Our Teeth,” a panoramic, often funny exploration of human history – as well as how and why, in even our darkest days, we somehow carry on. Did I mention that it was timely?

The stellar cast is packed with stage veterans who’ve appeared in prior Young Company shows as well as on stage at prestigious professional theaters such as Door Shakespeare, Madison’s Forward Theater Company, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and Skylight Music Theatre. Some shows are already sold out. For tickets, visit firststage.org.